Accidentaly Divine Read online

  Accidentally Divine

  Dakota Cassidy

  Copyright

  Accidentally Divine

  Published 2021 by Dakota Cassidy

  Copyright © 2021, Dakota Cassidy

  ISBN: 9798744534103

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from Dakota Cassidy.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, locales, or events is wholly coincidental. The names, characters, dialogue, and events in this book are from the author’s imagination and should not to be construed as real.

  Manufactured in the USA.

  Acknowledgements

  Cover art: Katie Wood

  Editor: Kelli Collins

  Dedication

  Twenty.

  Holy baloney!

  I can’t believe the girls made it to twenty books. Can you? What started out as a crazy concept way back in 2004 after fringing a writer’s conference in a hotel shared with women at a Mary Kay Cosmetics event turned into this—this madness—this mayhem—this ornery, sometimes shallow but loveable clan of women, and the people they’ve collected along the way.

  It’s been thirteen years this past February since Marty’s story was published, and here we are, just a pack of mouthy broads, still taking it one adventure at a time.

  These books spawned quirky catchphrases people still send me emails about. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “What’s in your color wheel?” or have been teased about Nina’s intense hatred for the color yellow—Nina being one of the most polarizing characters I’ve ever written. People either loved her or hated her, and they weren’t afraid to tell me so. Still, these women—these tough-as-nails, ride-or-die women—have endured for thirteen years.

  Thank you for joining me on twenty of these whacky journeys. Thank you for using your hard-earned dollars to spend a little time with a vain but loveable werewolf, an ornery, potty-mouthed marshmallow of a vampire and a cultured, well-mannered but feisty halfsie.

  They’ve evolved as people, they’ve grown, their families have grown, their love for one another has grown, as has my love for all of you.

  I’ll keep writing ’em if you keep reading.

  Major gratitude to the many animal rescues I follow on Facebook. As most of you know, I’m a huge animal lover, especially a special-needs animal. I gleaned a great deal of information from too many pages to count, but their kind hearts, detailed posts, and loving dedication to the precious babies some would call imperfect, but I call beloved, never ceases to leave my heart full in gratitude.

  And last but never least, with more gratitude, thanks to Touched by an Angel and Highway to Heaven. They were both insightful inspiration and instrumental in helping me build the world of guardian angels and their duties to mankind. This is merely my fictional take. Any and all mistakes, should they happen, are irrevocably mine.

  Love,

  Dakota XXOO

  Chapter 1

  Titus stared at Dexter Bridger. His soft brown eyes wide, his magnificent angel wings quivering, his mouth a thin line of disappointment. He stomped out his cigarette and shook his head before tasking a long sip off his silver flask.

  Finally, he stuffed the flask back in the pocket of his robes and inhaled deeply. “Oh, this is a pickle, Dex. The biggest pickle ever. How are you gonna get your perm wings back if you pull stunts like this? This is a sitch if I ever saw one.”

  Clasping his mammoth hands together, Dex’s superior paced the sidewalk, puffs of transparent clouds, like filmy mounds of whipped potatoes, following his gold-sandaled feet.

  Dexter stomped out the remnants of the embers still burning. “You’re gonna kill yourself smoking those things.”

  “Hah!” he barked with a lingering echo. “No can do, grasshopper. Already dead.”

  He had a point, but Dexter rolled his eyes at his advisor. “C’mon, man. It was pure instinct. I didn’t mean to save her. Though, while we’re visiting the subject, it does make me question the term guardian angel. If we’re going to call ourselves guardian angels, why aren’t we actually guarding our charges? If we just let them do what they want willy-nilly, like topple off a rooftop by mistake, and harm comes to them, what’s our purpose?”

  Dex had never understood looking after an assignment if you weren’t going to at least do exactly that—look after them. Though, upon reflection, that’s what had gotten him into his current trouble in the first place and the very reason he still only had his temporary wings.

  Titus sighed, his thatch of red hair bright under the streetlamp on this cold January night in downtown Buffalo. “Dex, you know what our job is. It’s to guide. To silently advise, gently persuade, if you will. In other words, don’t be obvi. If someone falls off a roof after tripping over a bottle of Schlitz Malt Liquor at a New Year’s Eve party, that’s not on us. It’s not our place to save them from their destiny.”

  He made a face at Titus. Destiny-schmestiny.

  Dex had been George, also known as Georgina Denise Maverick’s guardian angel for about a year now, and there’d been moments when he’d been tempted to throttle her for the countless times she put herself in harm’s way. Mostly emotional, but sometimes physical.

  Yet never once had he interfered, per se.

  Yep. That was his assignment. Thirty-five-year-old, single, events/travel coordinator at a senior living center, animal-loving, sometimes-lonely, guilt-riddled, people-pleasing, George.

  And if anyone was asking, being her guardian hadn’t been an easy task. Guarding George was as harrowing as watching over a toddler who’d escaped their sitter, teetering on a high-rise windowsill. George didn’t just put herself out there—she put herself out there, to the detriment of her self-esteem and, more importantly, her lonely, pained heart.

  But he still hadn’t interfered. Not even when that asshole Darren Storm had broken up with George a week before Christmas, yet still had the balls to ask her to make good on a promise to bake him a cake for his company Christmas party.

  Worse, she’d damn well done it.

  In fact, George had stayed up until four in the morning to bake and decorate it, even after spending the night with a sick, frightened senior whose family had missed their flight to be with her for an emergency surgery.

  Mrs. Wozniak had been terrified of going to the hospital, convinced no one came out alive. But her appendix had to come out before it burst, and George had stayed to hold her hand until she was taken into surgery—because that’s who George was.

  Selfless, kind, loved by everyone at Mom and Dad’s Place Senior Living Center, even if she didn’t know how loved she truly was.

  And when she’d gotten the text from that dick Darren, asking if she’d remembered the cake she’d promised to bake, and Dexter had watched her go to the all-night market and pick up the ingredients with his fists clenched, ready to wallop dick-ish Darren when he wasn’t looking, he’d still stayed out of it.

  Instead, he’d placed roadblocks in her way, and the opportunity to realize she was being taken advantage of, giving her the opportunity to right herself all on her own. But George was also, among many of the other attributes she possessed, stubborn as a mule.

  She’d made a promise to Darren and she’d been determined to keep it, even at the cost of a good night’s sleep and her pride.

  George never gave up, no matter how hard Dex tried to persuade her otherwise. And he’d done all the persuading. He’d made mental suggestions; he’d even made real-life suggestions directly to her face. All to almost no avail.

  Dexter
had been her friend and co-worker for ten months out of the year since he’d been charged with her “care and handling,” as the guys upstairs in the HR Department labeled it. They often had meals together. Sat in the atrium and had morning coffee on a break from Dex’s shift at the café located in the middle of the senior living compound, doing the job he’d taken as cover.

  They’d become instant friends from the day he’d started working at the café. They had more in common than he’d ever had with another human or angel.

  George thought he was gay, which almost made Dex’s job easier, and he didn’t tell her differently while trying his damnedest to stay emotionally uninvolved.

  Rules or no rules, she was hard as hell not to get involved with.

  Now, as Dex looked down at her limp body, lying against the curb in the harsh glow of the streetlight, her long dark hair shrouding her heart-shaped face, unharmed but unconscious, his instinct to scoop her up and cradle her close was almost agony to fend off.

  But if Titus knew how Dex felt about her, he’d have a conniption fit to rival even the Great Heavenly Meltdown of 2016. Dex would lose his chance at ever getting his permanent wings back, because he’d be shipped back upstairs faster than he could say Touched By an Angel.

  Rolling his tongue along the inside of his cheek, Dex took another shot at a weak defense. “I didn’t mean to interfere. It was instinct, Titus. Pure instinct.”

  Titus made a face before he crossed his arms across his massive chest and said, “You swooped in like Airforce One, Dex. Jumped right off that roof and snatched her up like you were snatching your dinner from the lake with feet of talons.”

  That was true. He had swooped in and saved her. But again, in his defense, George had been so sad the entire week after she’d left Mrs. Wozniak in the hospital that he hadn’t been thinking about much beyond her emotional well-being.

  She’d spent Christmas working to keep busy, but so sad it hurt to even look at her. Sad that Darren had dumped her and didn’t offer so much as a thank you for the beautiful cake she’d made.

  Sad that she was alone on New Year’s Eve, let alone Christmas, one of the hardest days for the lonely to endure. A day when guardian angels have to find a way to help their assignments weather the stark loneliness, which is almost as hard.

  George was simply sad to the marrow of her bones, and she’d had one more champagne cocktail than her alcohol tolerance level allowed at that stupid party.

  As the New Year rang in, and everyone was kissing their partners in celebration, George had turned away from the happy crowd, tears filling her eyes, and she’d tripped over a bottle of Schlitz Malt Liquor, stumbled, then toppled right over the edge of the roof—and no one had paid any attention. Not even a little.

  Except for him. Dex always paid attention. He’d watched her like a hawk from an adjacent rooftop, through the standing heat lamps and throng of festively dressed partygoers.

  He’d watched in horror as George tumbled toward the sidewalk below, a look of pure terror on her face. Her bell-shaped jacket billowing behind her, her legs flailing, her mouth open in a silent scream. And he’d reacted, as a guardian angel does.

  His feelings for her aside, Dex had summoned and unfurled his wings and soared downward after her without thinking twice. But after he’d scooped George up, only seconds before crashing against the unforgiving pavement, he’d clipped her shoulder with his wings.

  Dexter looked to a disapproving Titus in semi-guilt. He knew what he’d done went against their rules for angels, but he was having trouble feeling particularly bad about it. George had a lot to give the world, if she’d only let herself. He wanted her to have the chance to do that.

  “Like I said, it was instinctual, Titus,” he repeated woodenly.

  Titus clucked his tongue in disappointed admonishment, snapping his fingers to make another lit cigarette appear. He took a deep drag and eyed Dexter.

  “Well, instinct’s gonna get you stuck in receiving forevs, bud. You want a desk job, or do you want to be out here in the field?”

  Duh. He wanted to be out in the field. He needed to be out in the field for reasons he couldn’t reveal, for fear he’d break more guardian angel rules.

  He’d been trying to prove that for almost a year with George, who just wouldn’t stay out of trouble no matter what he did. Their mutual boss, Frank—also the man upstairs’ right-hand angel—knew what he was doing when he’d told Dex he’d have to prove how much he wanted the freedom to roam as a guardian after he lost his wings the last time.

  Frank had given him George, a case that was almost as impossible as guarding Satan himself, minus the evil, of course. She was anything but evil, but she wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, either.

  Dexter swallowed hard, fighting a shiver. “Was she really supposed to die, Titus?”

  That was the way of a guardian angel. Their duty wasn’t to prevent a subject’s fate; it was their duty to help them find their way before biting the big one. To offer them hope beyond the mortal realm, if they were willing to receive it, that is.

  Sometimes it was to help them reconcile something they’d done, a regret, a legacy. Sometimes it was to ease their coming passing. Most times, an angel didn’t know their subject’s fate, and any and all choices the subject eventually made were theirs alone, and angels weren’t supposed to deviate from the plan.

  He’d deviated one too many times.

  Titus shrugged his shoulders as he sat on his haunches in front of George, his silky white and gold robes rustling in the cold January wind. He placed his cigarette-free hand on George’s pale skin, brushing her mussed hair from her chalky-white forehead.

  “I don’t know, Dex. You know I don’t. I mean, she did fall nine stories. That pretty much implies death. But you were supposed to wait and see and, if that was the case, send her off to wherever she was supposed to go. Like probably to an expert guardian who could teach her the ways of being an angel. But you can’t do that now, can you? Because if by some miracle—and we are in the biz of miracles—she wasn’t supposed to die, how are you going to explain Heaven having an extra angel who’s technically still half alive? Kind of suspish, right?”

  Shit.

  He crouched next to Titus, looking to his longtime friend to advise him. “So what now?”

  Titus stared at George’s motionless body and took another deep drag of his smoke before he said, “You teach her how to be a guardian angel. You don’t have a choice.”

  Dexter blinked. “Me? C’mon, man, I can’t even get my own permanent wings back. How the fresh hell am I going to teach George to get hers?”

  Scooping George up in his arms, her small body so fragile compared to Titus’s enormous frame, he gaped at Dexter, the lit cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. “I’m sorry, man, but would you prefer I let Frank handle this? Because you know what’ll happen if Frank handles this. Or do you want me to cover for you while I find a way to free up a spot and slip her in without anyone noticing? That’s going to take some finags, good buddy. But I need you, Dex. You’re one of the best I’ve got.”

  Titus had this irritating habit of abbreviating words, and right now, it made him want to slug his old friend in the chops—even if he was helping him.

  “So what can you finag, old friend?”

  Titus blew out a breath. “Well, it’s obvi I can’t do both. It’s either find a way to sneak her upstairs, or I stay here and teach her how to be a guardian myself, and I’m not sure how I’m gonna squeeze that in with all the other stuff I have to take care of. So… Like I said, I really need you.”

  That was fair. It was more than fair. Still, Dex had some serious reservations about keeping her out of the line of fire. “But won’t they notice a newb guardian? What if she was supposed to die but she wasn’t supposed to be a guardian at all, Titus? What if they’re waiting for her right now?”

  Titus pressed an enormous hand to his shoulder. “You’ve been away from home for a long time, Dex. Have you
forgotten how it works? Everyone’s a guardian at first, unless they’re crappy at it and can’t do field work. Remember?”

  Running a hand over his chin, Dex bounced his head and snapped his fingers. “Right. They’ll just think she’s roaming around down here with…?”

  “Me,” Titus boomed with a grin. “I’ll just tell them she’s under my care. No one will question it.”

  “Totally forgot, but that’ll help for the time being. Aaand, if after thirty days, she can’t be a guardian for whatever reason, she becomes a helper—desk job, cleaner, garden work and so on. So I’ve got a little time to right this.”

  Titus gave him a solemn nod. “Right. A month and a few days at best if the guys in receiving are bogged down.”

  Dex looked at beautiful George and grimaced when another worry came to mind. “But wait. You’re going to have to lie, T. I can’t ask you to do that for me.”

  Titus shook his head. “I’m not gonna lie, padre. I’m gonna tell them I handed her off to you because that’s what I’m doing, right? If we get caught before I slip her in upstairs, I’ll just tell ’em my plate was full and I needed some help. You already know George. So it made sense to delegate to you.”

  That did make sense. Perfect sense. Mostly. But it didn’t change the fact that it was a lie.

  “But it’s still a lie,” he insisted.

  He was all for white lies as long as they didn’t harm anyone, but this also meant he had to lie to George about becoming an angel—in that, he didn’t know where she stood being only half angel.

  “As far as I’m concerned, it’s a white one, and I’m willing to take the hit. I need you, Dex. I wasn’t joking when I said that. You’re one of the very best. I don’t want to lose you.”

  But then panic crept into Dex’s chest again at another stumbling block. “What if she was supposed to die and she wasn’t meant to go up?” he asked from clenched teeth.